ENERGY company EDF is facing a united demand from civic leaders to give communities set to suffer the impact of its proposed Hinkley C nuclear power station a fairer deal.

West Somerset Council has joined forces with neighbouring Sedgemoor District Council and Somerset County Council to ensure that local people are not short changed by the French firm.

The three authorities have written to EDF and the Department of Energy and Climate Change making it clear that a proposed one-off payment of a £20 million community fund would not be fair compensation given the scale and life span of a development regarded as nationally significant.

The councils have said the offer is a fraction of what nuclear operators would be required to pay elsewhere in Europe, or even what companies in other energy sectors, such as renewables, pay in the UK.

If consent for the new nuclear build is granted by the Government's Infrastructure Planning Commission, it is likely to take around nine years to construct, be operational for at least 60 years and possibly require radioactive waste to be stored on site for up to 100 years.

Yet the EDF offer works out at less than £120,000 a year.

The councils maintain that if the station was being built in Italy or France, many hundreds of millions of pounds would be paid to local communities, with annual payments throughout its life of up to 160 years.

The authorities are working together to secure a Community Benefit Contribution scheme, an internationally recognised concept which is already well established in a host of other countries, including the USA, Japan, Switzerland and a number of European nations.

Sedgemoor District Council chief executive Kerry Rickards said Somerset must get a fair deal for hosting what would be one of the first new nuclear power stations in the UK.

"While £20m may seem like a lot of money, it simply isn't when you think about it across the life span of this project," he said.

"Future generations of Somerset residents will not thank us if we do not secure the appropriate level of benefit from something that will have an impact on the area until 2111."

Adrian Dyer, West Somerset's chief executive, said it was part of the role of the three councils as community leaders to consider all implications of the project over its lifetime and to work with the developers to make sure they provided appropriate support and investment for host communities.

Somerset County Council leader Cllr Ken Maddock said EDF had said it was examining the councils' suggestions and would be happy to discuss them.

In a statement, the company insisted that the development would bring around £100 million of "lasting benefit" for the community during the construction period.

These would include funds made available to the community to improve the quality of life for people in Somerset and investment in infrastructure which could be of lasting benefit.

"The fund element includes a significantly increased community fund of £20m," said a spokesman.

"It also includes a multi-million pound range of other funds and contributions in housing, colleges, skills and services which will be of legacy benefit to the community."

The spokesman said a recent poll found that the majority of people in Sedgemoor, Taunton Deane and West Somerset thought the proposed £100m of investment by EDF would have a positive impact on the area.

And almost two-thirds of people questioned considered the increase in the community fund - originally set at £1m - to be either about right - 54 per cent - or too big - nine per cent.

Just 17 per cent of people polled said the fund was too small.

EDF said its investment in infrastructure would include transport and highway improvements, as well as some accommodation which would be left for the community once the construction of Hinkley C was completed.

The company said the £100m proposed was part of £300m the company expected to spend on mitigating the impacts of the project and providing community benefit.